Games of 2017

We are pleased to inform you that the following games are selected as nominees for our 2017 edition (random order):

First Class – Hans im Glück

Key to the City – London – R&D Games

Terraforming Mars – FryxGames

Great Western Trail – Eggertspiele

Railroad Revolution – What’s Your Game?

Lorenzo Il Magnifico – Cranio Creations

Honshu – Lautapelit.fi

Quadropolis – Days of Wonder

The selection process for the tournament games is finished. We have selected the following tournament games, which are confirmed:

Great Western Trail – Eggertspiele

Lorenzo Il Magnifico – Cranio Creations

Honshu – Lautapelit.fi

First Class – Hans im Glück

Disclaimer: Please note that the selection of the tournament games is not based on single titles. We have to take into account total overall playing time, different gaming mechanisms, etc, etc. So we opt for a best possible mix.

In the 2400s, mankind begins to terraform the planet Mars. Giant corporations, sponsored by the World Government on Earth, initiate huge projects to raise the temperature, the oxygen level, and the ocean coverage until the environment is habitable. In Terraforming Mars, you play one of those corporations and work together in the terraforming process, but compete for getting victory points that are awarded not only for your contribution to the terraforming, but also for advancing human infrastructure throughout the solar system, and doing other commendable things.

The players acquire unique project cards (from over two hundred different ones) by buying them to their hand. The projects (cards) can represent anything from introducing plant life or animals, hurling asteroids at the surface, building cities, to mining the moons of Jupiter and establishing greenhouse gas industries to heat up the atmosphere. The cards can give you immediate bonuses, as well as increasing your production of different resources. Many cards also have requirements and they become playable when the temperature, oxygen, or ocean coverage increases enough. Buying cards is costly, so there is a balance between buying cards (3 megacredits per card) and actually playing them (which can cost anything between 0 to 41 megacredits, depending on the project). Standard Projects are always available to complement your cards.

When the three global parameters (temperature, oxygen, ocean) have all reached their goal, the terraforming is complete, and the game ends after that generation. Count your Terraform Rating and other VPs to determine the winning corporation!

In Key to the City – London, each player aims to develop their own London borough based around their home tile, using the large hexagonal location tiles. Each location tile gives victory points and may generate resources (skill tiles or connectors that connect two location tiles). Connectors and skill tiles can be used to upgrade location tiles for additional victory points and productivity.

The game is played over four eras, and in each era, new location tiles will be available for bidding.

On their turn, a player chooses one of five actions. They may use one or more of their team of wooden workers (“keyples”) to (1) bid for a location tile, (2) use a location tile to generate resources, or (3) upgrade a location. They may (4) pass, in which case they may play again in that era, or (5) cease playing in that era by setting off in their sailing barge along the Thames. The game finishes after the last river barge sets sail at the end of era 4, at which point the player with the most victory points wins.

Key to the City – London has similarities in structure to the award-winning 2012 R&D game Keyflower.

In First Class: Unterwegs im Orient Express/All Aboard the Orient Express!, players try to score as many fame points as possible by building a rich network of rails, by building luxurious train cars, or by serving well-paying passengers.

First Class is a card game that feels more like a board game, and since each game is played with the base cards and two of five modules, the game offers lots of variety as not all elements are used in each playing.

America in the 19th century: You are a rancher and repeatedly herd your cattle from Texas to Kansas City, where you send them off by train. This earns you money and victory points. Needless to say, each time you arrive in Kansas City, you want to have your most valuable cattle in tow. However, the “Great Western Trail” not only requires that you keep your herd in good shape, but also that you wisely use the various buildings along the trail. Also, it might be a good idea to hire capable staff: cowboys to improve your herd, craftsmen to build your very own buildings, or engineers for the important railroad line.

If you cleverly manage your herd and navigate the opportunities and pitfalls of Great Western Trail, you surely will gain the most victory points and win the game.

Ambition and a thirst for wealth have driven humanity to strive for ever greater progress. In America, during the 19th century, battles were waged between huge railway corporations that sought to connect state to state and coast with coast… making themselves filthy rich in the process. Railroad Revolution drops you straight into the middle of these tempestuous years; a time that changed America forever.

In Railroad Revolution, you will manage your own railroad company, ruthlessly competing to be the most powerful railroad tycoon across all America. You will build railroads, establish stations in your connected cities, expand the network of telegraph lines, and chase your objectives, increasing the value of your company with every action you take.

You start with mainly a team of non-specialized workers, but during the game you can hire additional ones with specific skill sets. The cost or effect of an action is determined by the type of worker that does it. To complete your company objectives, you will have to remove some of your workers from your active pool, promoting them to managerial positions. You must carefully assign each of your workers to perform the right action at the right time in order to exploit their specializations in the best way. You need to decide which ones to promote and which are instead still needed to take actions, as your priorities will change from turn to turn.

Railroad Revolution is a fast paced game with relatively simple rules, and it provides you with interesting and challenging decisions. Having a good strategy and finding the correct timing to implement it, is the key to winning the game.

Lorenzo de’ Medici, also known as “Lorenzo il Magnifico” (Lorenzo the Magnificent), was one of the most powerful and enthusiastic patrons of the Italian Renaissance.

In Lorenzo il Magnifico, each player takes the role of a head of a noble family in a city during the Italian renaissance. You try to accumulate prestige and fame to gain more victory points (VP) than the others. To do so, you send your family members to different areas of town, where they can obtain many achievements. In one location they get useful resources, in another development cards (which represent newly conquered territories, sponsored buildings, influenced characters, or encouraged ventures), somewhere else they activate the effects of their cards.

Family members are not identical. At the beginning of each round, you roll three dice to determine the family members’ value. You must carefully choose where to send your family members with a higher value…You can gain VP several ways, and you must also pay attention to your relations with the Church. The game is divided into three periods, each formed by two rounds; at the end of each period, players must show their faith, and whoever hasn’t prayed enough will suffer hard penalties.After six rounds, you calculate your final scoring, and the player with the most VP wins.

Honshu is a trick-taking, map-building card game set in feudal Japan. Players are lords and ladies of noble houses seeking new lands and opportunities for fame and fortune.

One game of Honshu lasts twelve rounds, and each round is divided into two phases. First, map cards are played in a trick, and the player who played the highest valued card gets to pick first from those cards played. Then the players use the map cards picked to expand their personal maps. Each player must expand their personal maps to maximize their scoring possibilities.

Manipulating your position in the player order is crucial for mastering Honshu.

Each player builds their own metropolis in Quadropolis, but they’re competing with one another for the shops, parks, public services and other structures to be placed in them.

The game lasts four rounds, and in each round players first lay out tiles for the appropriate round at random on a 5×5 grid. Each player has four architects numbered 1-4 and on a turn, a player places an architect next to a row or column in the grid, claims the tile that’s as far in as the number of the architect placed (e.g., the fourth tile in for architect #4), places that tile in the appropriately numbered row or column on the player’s 4×4 city board, then claims any resources associated with the tile (inhabitants or energy).

When a player takes a tile, a figure is placed in this now-empty space and the next player cannot place an architect in the same row or column where this tile was located. In addition, you can’t place one architect on top of another, so each placement cuts off play options for you and everyone else later in the round. After all players have placed all four architects, the round ends, all remaining tiles are removed, and the tiles for the next round laid out.

After four rounds, the game ends. Players can move the inhabitants and energy among their tiles at any point during the game to see how to maximize their score.